Booby Dupes

Larry, Curly, and Moe are selling fish out of their truck. Cats eat up their inventory. They need more fish and buy sailor uniforms to go fishing. Curly joins a beauty who comes with a jealous boyfriend. The guys buy a boat which has many problems. They go fishing and have even more problems. The boys are fun. This one works from start to finish. Curly drilling holes in the boat to let the water out is inventive and hilarious.

This was one of those very fast-moving Stooges shorts that really had no story. Even so, I was surprised to see familiar foil Vernon Dent kind of forgotten in the last half of the film. He was supposed to be chasing the guy (who was Curly) who stole his Naval Captain's uniform. We never know what happened regarding that angle.

The best gags in here for in the first half, anyway. The boys have a truck, selling fresh fish and some of the routines are both subtle and slapstick as they try to peddle their wares and then come up with the idea of buying their own boat to catch the fish and cut out the middleman.

However, you can imagine how their boat-sailing and fishing expeditions. Suffice to say, not too well!

A nice feature in here was seeing Rebel Randall (that's a woman!) in her bathing suit. Wow, would she look good in today's styles.

This short subject finds the 3 Stooges as fish peddlers and doing about as well as they do in other occupations. But they get the brilliant idea of becoming fishermen and selling their catch wholesale. What the Fulton Fish Market in New York wouldn't do to keep these guys away.

Once at sea in a pair of ramshackle rowboats the boys have their usual monkeyshines trying to learn their new trade. Curly has a bout with a flying fish and need I tell you who won?

But adding insult to injury when they sink one boat and get to the second, trying to get attention they raise a white flag for rescue. A passing plane sees the white flag and because of certain stains thinks it Japanese.

What was unusual about this was that at the very end Moe has a good idea from getting away from the bombs dropping all around. Can't tell what it is. But Stooge fans everywhere will appreciate it.

Booby Dupes (1945)

*** (out of 4)

The Stooges are trying their luck at selling fish but after a bunch of kittens eat their stock they realize that they're going to have to try something new. Curly comes up with an idea to cut out the middle man and instead catch the fish that they'll eventually sell. This leads the boys to buy a boat and things just don't go as planned.

BOOBY DUPES isn't the greatest films that the Stooges did but it certainly contains enough laughs to make it worth watching. The highlight of the film comes when Curly ends up doing battle against a fish who just isn't going to give up no matter what happens. There's also some good stuff at the start of the picture when the boy's car isn't working correctly. As I said, this here certainly isn't a classic Stooges short but there are enough laughs that make it work.

Long-time Three Stooges director Del Lord turned 50 when he finally got word he was ending his association with the comedy team to fulfill his cherished dream of directing feature films. After handling over three dozens of the Stooges' Columbia Pictures short films, Lord's final one with Curly was March 1945's "Booby Dupes." Ten years earlier, Lord was asked to direct March 1935's "Pop Goes the Easel," his first in a long line of his involvement with Stooges comedies. His imprint on refining the Stooges' schtick is incalculable, smoothing out their rough edges while having them deliver a constant stream of superb gags. The Ontario, Canadian Lord was introduced to movies as one of the Keystone Cops' drivers for fellow Canadian Mack Sennett's studio. Graduating to director, Lord specialized in filming car sequences, containing explosive and crashing automobiles. Several studios later, Lord's brilliant direction saw him specializing in Stooges' comedies, where he both scripted and directed the talented trio. Once he left Columbia's short film division to move over to its feature film unit, Lord's forte was in musicals and comedies. He did returned briefly to direct a handful of short films, including one with the Stooges, this time with Shemp, who replaced the ailing Curly.

"Booby Dupes" title derives on the Fleischer Studios' early 1930s cartoon character Betty Boop and her trademark singing 'boom-pop-a-doop.' The Stooges are fish salesmen who realize they can make more money by catching fish instead of buying through a middle man. They exchange their dilapidated car for a fragile boat. Once out to sea, the intrepid Stooges face a spiteful aggressive fish streaming water into Curly's face, and an United States Air Corps plane lobbing bombs at them thinking they're Japanese after seeing Moe waving a white rescue flag with a red paint spot in the middle. Del Lord, who also wrote the script, remembered the Laurel and Hardy 1932 short 'Towed in a Hole' with a similar plot. This was the last Stooges film to have the lady with the torch seen in the opening credits.